NDP must prove it's in for the long haul

Like boxers in a ring, some politicians can't quite resist a re-match. Take Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe. After watching his party virtually wiped off the electoral map in 2011 - dropping from 47 MPs to two as the New Democrats grabbed the spoils - he's come out of retirement looking for redemption.

Like boxers in a ring, some politicians can’t quite resist a re-match. Take Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe. After watching his party virtually wiped off the electoral map in 2011 – dropping from 47 MPs to two as the New Democrats grabbed the spoils – he’s come out of retirement looking for redemption.

He’s convinced the Bloc has a future, arguing that what happened in 2011 is a case of fickle yet pragmatic Quebecers indulging in strategic voting to get more out of the Canadian experience rather than a rejection of Bloc ideas or him.

Plus, as he pointed out this week, the last time Quebecers went to the polls their minds were filled with the “Bon Jack” factor, a reference to the affection for former NDP leader Jack Layton who managed to woo Quebecers into forsaking the Bloc.

“The person who was responsible for us losing many ridings was not (current leader) Thomas Mulcair,” Duceppe said kicking off his campaign Sunday. “It was (the late) Jack Layton.”

Still, as another round of the Battle for Quebec kicks into gear leading to the Oct. 19 federal election, the Bloc has a long way to go to redeem itself while the NDP still appears to have the wind in its sails. If anything, the Bloc has made itself even less appealing since the last election – a factor linked to language hardliner Mario Beaulieu.

After Beaulieu took over the Bloc from Duceppe, who quit on election night in 2011, party moderates that included key MPs departed.

The Bloc held two seats at dissolution and, according to a Leger poll in July, was sitting at 19 per cent in the polls.

The Bloc is fighting back. Beaulieu – realizing the party was going nowhere under his leadership – stepped aside before the election campaign and let the better known Duceppe come back.

Duceppe has been mending fences ever since but, at age 68, is struggling to shake off his image as yesterday’s man – a guy still fighting the old sovereigntist battles.

It’s been quite a come down.

Money is scarce and getting a full roster of candidates to run for a party apparently going nowhere has been a struggle. The party is still short about 30 candidates, but Duceppe says the Bloc will have a full slate.

One of Duceppe’s first moves has been to launch a roving bike tour of the province to meet Quebecers and hold spot news conferences.

In comments on election launch day, Duceppe went on at length about sovereignty, a sure sign he feels the Bloc needs to shore up its base vote of sovereigntists before wooing the soft nationalists who were the Bloc’s bread and butter.

Analysts agree the Bloc needs to win at least 12 seats to save face.

Which leads us to the other side of the Quebec battlefield. The NDP wants to show that the stunning election of 59 MPs in 2011 was no fluke.

Mulcair sees that success as a springboard to better things.

“The time has come for the rest of Canada to complete the change started here, in Quebec, in 2011,” Mulcair said Tuesday at a news conference on Mount Royal, the same place he announced he was running for the NDP eight years ago.

“I am anxious for progressives in the rest of Canada to join the Quebec ones to form Canada’s first social-democratic government in history,” Mulcair said.

The Quebec part of the election will also be an interesting test of the mood of citizens.

Universite du Quebec a Montreal political scientist Alain G. Gagnon is among analysts who believe the 2011 “orange wave,” reveals a fundamental political shift away from Quebec’s traditional federalist-sovereigntist divide to a more conventional left-right debate.

“If Quebecers feel the NDP – and I think this is happening – has the wind in (its) sails and has the best chance of defeating the government, then many francophones and anglophones will transform the orange wave into something more permanent or at least durable,” Gagnon said.

“That’s starting to break down. People started looking at social policies, environment policies, economic policies, realizing that the NDP spoke their language.”

And Gagnon added early campaign poll data, which places the NDP first in Quebec at 37 per cent, will make it tough for anyone to catch up.

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